After a short period of dedicated studies Peersson slipped into a lifestyle of a rake, indulging in drinking and duels; in 1593 he was expelled from the university and ended up in jail for debts.
Back in Sweden, Peersson compiled his dispatches into a Fair and true relation on recent Russian past from Ivan Grozny to the ascension of Vasily Shuysky.
The book was based exclusively on Peersson's own experience and on the oral narratives by contemporary Russians (Vasily Shuysky, Maria Nagaya and the retinue of False Dmitriy I) and Western witnesses (Caspar Fiedler, Conrad Bussow).
Peersson's understanding of the general sequence of the Time of Troubles and their causes is very close to modern mainstream theory, but his description of contemporary events outside his own and his direct sources' reach is regarded as only partially credible.
It is nevertheless corroborated by independent, equally unforgiving memoirs by Giles Fletcher, the Elder (1591) and Samuel Collins (1671) and is representative of the Protestant view of contemporary Muscovy.